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22 Pentecost C Proper 24 October 16, 2016
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8
The Rev. David R. Wilt
In 1973 our newest Nobel prize recipient for literature, Bob Dylan, wrote a song about a young sheriff who was dying and lamenting about the things in life he would not be needing any more.
“Mama take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore”
“Mama put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore”
The refrain was a repetition of that haunting phrase, “knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door.”
Those items that he had been so proud of and thought that they defined him, his badge and his gun, were now of no use.
Prayer, as we have often been taught from an early age, can be a litany of wishes and desires and requests for things that in the end will be of no use or purpose, or importance. Some people can go a lifetime praying for worldly success, comfort and wealth and never realize until they are knocking on heaven’s door that they had been praying for the wrong things.
Other people may go a lifetime praying for acceptance, praying for a voice, praying for justice praying for equality only to feel like perhaps God has not been listening or at least not seeming to care much about their plight.
So, it is in that context that we hear the words of Luke today as Jesus tells the parable of the crooked judge and the persistant woman.
We can get this picture of her badgering the judge perhaps interrupting his staid and orderly courtroom maybe even finding his home and standing in the street at his doorstep screaming for justice. We can imagine the abusive judge, who at first can’t imagine the nerve of this woman to challenge his authority, who uses every symbol of power, from his gavel to the bailiff to shut this woman up, and finally in total frustration granting her justice.
Interesting note is that we are never told in this story that the judge ever came to understand that the woman deserved justice like everyone else but only that he relented so she would leave him alone. Only a change of mind, not of heart.
Jesus uses this parable to demonstrate the need to pray always and not lose heart.
It’s important to remember that this is a parable, an illustration of a moral or spiritual lesson. It is not an anecdote of a real event and so if we are to understand what Jesus is saying we must be willing to get down in the weeds of this parable because quite honestly, as we look at the world today with its lack of respect for the dignity of others, with disasters befalling nations that have long ago lost the ability to cope with disaster, with wars making orphans of children, with obscene examples of disproportionate wealth it is really difficult some days to feel that our prayers may be doing anything other meaningless knock on heaven’s door, and no one is answering.
So when we think about prayer we far too often think about us being helpless unless we can depend on this intervening God to step in and make things the way we think they should be.
That is a big mistake.
We are one with God and therefore if something is important enough to pray about it is probably important enough to ask God what we should do to make it happen. Ask any civil rights leader, or women liberationist if anything would have ever happened to answer their prayers for equality had they not felt empowered and driven to step up and speak out, often at the risk of their lives.
But also, if we are one with God, then in our prayers we have to always remember the nature of God. And, God will always come down on the side of justice. God has a natural affinity for the powerless, for those who have no influence, for those who have no voice, and for those who have nowhere else to turn.
How do I know that?
All you have to do is follow Jesus around the Sea of Gallilee and watch who he hangs out with, who he dines with, who he heals, and, of equal importance, who he continually calls to task.
So if we are praying in concert with God we have to be of the nature of God.
Having mastered being one with God, then persistence in prayer takes on a different light. Persistence in prayer steels us for the eventuality of loss, or grief, or bad news, or hope in the face of the storm. Not to pray the storm up the coast upon our neighbor, but God’s presence with us in the storm.
Remember old Jonah, who got called to ministry in a place he didn’t want to be so he goes off on his own and finds himself in the belly of a whale. Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the whale was segments of seven different Psalms that obviously he had memorized some time before the whale event
It is a very bad time to get faith or religion when the whale has already swallowed you. It is a very bad time to get faith or religion when the storm is upon us. It is hard to focus if the only time we have worked on our relationship with Jesus Christ is when we are knocking on heaven’s door.
Persistence in prayer is preparation for the worst and expectation of the best.
An Episcopal priest, a Baptist minister, and a monk were eating lunch together one day, unaware that a telephone repairman was at the next table listening to them talk about the best position for prayer.
The priest said, “Well obviously it’s kneeling, it says so right in the prayer book.”
The Baptist spoke up and said, “Oh no the best position is standing with your arms stretched out to heaven.”
The Monk said, “I respectfully disagree. The best position is lying prostrate with your face to the ground.”
With this the telephone repairman leaned over and said, “Sorry to interrupt but the best position for prayer I’ve ever had is one day when I was hanging upside down from a telephone pole.”
That is probably true. But, it is definitely not the best time or place to learn how to pray.
Prayer is difficult because the more we concentrate on prayer the more we hear the voice of God saying to Isaiah,
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways.” (Isa 55:8) Or, the voice of God in the Psalmists lament, “A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone.”
But, in our persistent prayer our faith livens to assure us that if God is with us, and, just as important, we are with God, who can be against us.
When we are knocking on heaven’s door persistent prayer gives us the assurance that someone will answer our call Persistence in prayer brings us to an understanding of those worldly things that we think we need but really don’t and those spiritual things that we cannot survive without.
“Mama take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore.”